


his heart is warm but it's burn he wants

by lanyon



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (2012), The Avengers - Ambiguous Fandom
Genre: AU: Neighbours, Accidental trope subversion, Ambigous Ending, Community: trope_bingo, F/M, Implied/offscreen character death, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-28
Updated: 2013-01-28
Packaged: 2017-11-27 08:31:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/659925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neighbours AU: Bucky moves into a building in Brooklyn and encounters a frail young man, called Steve Rogers. Unfortunately, Bucky doesn't understand the significance of this.</p>
            </blockquote>





	his heart is warm but it's burn he wants

**Author's Note:**

  * For [beardsley](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beardsley/gifts).



> + **Warnings** for implied death of a major characters (but the ending is ambiguous).  
>  +For beardsley, who's not feeling too well. I'm not sure this is curative.

It’s not love at first sight. Bucky’s not sure he believes in it and, in any case, he doesn’t actually remember when he first noticed Steve Rogers. It’s embarrassing, given how everything turns out. They’ve lived in the same building for four months and Bucky’s only vaguely aware of the little guy who lives in the studio on the top floor.

.

Bucky moves in on a rainy Sunday afternoon. 

“I can’t believe I left Russia to move in with a goddamned Russian,” he mutters. 

Natasha slaps him upside the head because she’s got the hearing of a bat. She probably uses goddamned sonar to move around the apartment at night. “ _Zhatknis_ ,” she hisses.

“We’re not speaking Russian, Natashen’ka,” Bucky says. “No. No way. I am drawing a line under that period in my life.”

 _That period_ in Bucky’s life is the five-year stint he spent in Moscow with the DSS and now he’s in Brooklyn, living with a goddamned Russian ballerina, who _does_ things with her body that can’t be natural. They met when she was a student at the Bolshoi; he likes to think he taught her everything she knows but she’s always been flexible.

.

He doesn’t sleep with his SIG under his pillow, even though that’s what Natasha tells everyone. 

(It’s always within reach, though.)

. 

On his second day, he nearly knocks over one of his neighbours. The guy is small and, at first, Bucky thinks he’s a kid until he hears the voice that comes out of him, deep and strong and _hey, watch where you’re going._

Bucky’s in a hurry so he doesn’t look back, just shouting sorry as he sprints to the subway station. There’s a desk job waiting for him in the city and he can’t be late.

.

Bucky fucks Natasha. He fucks her partner from the New York City Ballet and he fucks both of them together. The sweat cools at the base of his spine afterwards and Natasha drapes herself over his chest and whispers to Clint, “he sleeps with his gun under his pillow, you know.” 

“There’s a joke about accidental discharge in there,” says Clint, “but I’m in no fucking position to make it.” 

.

The elevators are out, which is a pain in the ass. Natasha says the elevators are always out. She says it’s not good for her knees and Bucky says nothing about the metal plate in his left knee from an IED in Afghanistan six years ago. He knows she’s seen the scars on his left arm, the twisted white burns that extend from the inside of his wrist to the underside of his jaw (and he’s never been a fan of turtlenecks). 

One evening, Bucky comes home and there’s a guy, a neighbour, on the half-landing between the first and second floor. He’s holding his own body weight in groceries, from the looks of it, and he’s breathing heavily. Bucky can hear him wheezing from six steps down. 

“Can I help you, pal?” he asks. 

The guy shakes his head. “No,” he manages before he’s gasping again. “Just-”

So, okay, he’s clearly stubborn as all get-out, which Bucky totally appreciates but he also looks like he’s about to die and Bucky hasn’t spent the last eight years of his life protecting Americans around the world just to stand aside while his neighbour expires on his own front doorstep.

“Which apartment is yours?” he asks.

“6H,” says the guy. He doesn’t actually stop Bucky from taking his bags out of his arms. 

“That’s a hell of a trek without an elevator,” says Bucky. “I’m James, by the way. But my friends call me Bucky.”

“Steve,” says the guy. “Steve Rogers.”

.

“I said _my friends call me Bucky_ and he still calls me James. What does that mean, Nat? What does that meeeean?”

Natasha turns the page of her newspaper. “Quite possibly that he respects you as a person but hasn’t pictured you naked often enough to take those kinds of liberties.”

“Pictured me naked? Do you think he’s pictured me naked?”

Natasha purses her lips and pushes her empty mug towards Bucky.

“Worst friend ever,” says Bucky and he doesn’t mind admitting that he stalks into the kitchen to make her tea. 

.

It’s possible that Bucky has pictured Steve Rogers naked. When they make it up all the flights of stairs - and Steve is moving much more freely now that he’s not carrying all of his groceries - Bucky can get a good look at him. He’s painfully thin and, when he takes off his coat, the rich blue sweater he’s wearing slides sideways at the collar to reveal the most delicate collarbone Bucky’s seen this side of Natasha. 

“You stockpiling for the inevitable demise of society?” he asks, carrying the bags through to Steve’s tiny kitchen. 

“Something like that,” says Steve. He coughs into his sleeve. “Chest infection setting in. Reckon it’ll be a few days before I get downstairs again.”

Bucky blinks. It’s like sharing a building with an actual consumptive but, hopefully, with less blood-stained white handkerchiefs. 

“Dude, if you need anything, you gotta give me a call. I don’t wanna be the one to find your body half-eaten by cats.”

“I’m allergic to cats,” says Steve, his tone so dry that Bucky feels breathless. “But I appreciate the sentiment.”

.

On Saturday, Bucky bounds up the stairs to 6H. It’s weird how his knee doesn’t ache so much when he’s thinking about Steve, and the geographic age it took him to get up the stairs. 

He knocks on the door and Steve opens it within seconds. He looks surprised (perhaps he doesn’t know that people can knock on doors) and there’s something red (paint or maybe ketchup) on his cheek and he’s wearing a t-shirt two sizes too big for him. 

“Oh,” he says. “James, hi.” He smiles, a wry twist of his lips. “Haven’t been eaten by cats.” 

Bucky steps in as Steve steps back. “Thank fuck. I was worried. You’re looking better.”

“Thanks,” says Steve and now he looks puzzled, which is a totally different sort of surprise. “Can I- help you?”

“I’d love a coffee?” 

Steve rolls his eyes. He rolls his eyes! Bucky likes this guy. “If I’d known you were such a high-maintenance neighbour, I’d never have stopped to let you carry my groceries.”

“Buddy, you were about to fucking die in front of my eyes.” 

Steve smiles. “And prone to exaggeration. How does Ms Romanova put up with you?”

“You know Nat?” asks Bucky. “Wait, Nat knows you? Has everyone been holding out on me?”

“James,” says Steve and Bucky’s heart clenches a bit. “You and I have only just met. I haven’t even _begun_ to hold out on you.” 

He looks up at Bucky and his eyes are so big and blue and Bucky forgets what he was going to say.

.

Bucky meets Toro by chance one night. They catch up over a few pints and then fall into bed together, the way they haven’t since Basic. It’s not even that late when Bucky kisses Toro up the stairs, muffling an apology as they almost collide with someone.

.

“So, what can you tell me about Steve Rogers?” asks Bucky. 

“Why? You planning on being his BFF?”

“ _I_ could be his BFF,” says Bucky and he knows he sounds a little sulky. “What does he even do?”

“You never had to do any actual detective work, like, ever in your professional life, right?”

.

Bucky meets Sam. They connect, like crazy. It’s possible the tequila helps but there’s a bond here. It goes to the _soul_.

“I’d totally do the trust fall with you, man,” says Bucky. “Like. I know you’d catch me.”

Sam laughs and it’s a little tired and a little slurred. “Sure. Sure thing. I’d catch you.”

They kiss goodnight in front of Bucky’s apartment building and fall in through the door. 

The next morning, having decided that the sex was good but the friendship is better, Sam kisses Bucky goodbye and Bucky’s not above watching a man like that walk away.

“Excuse me,” comes a quiet voice and Bucky steps in out of the hallway to let someone - oh, Steve - pass. 

“Going out?” Bucky asks. 

“Just for coffee,” says Steve. He shoves his hands in the pockets of his grey anorak. 

(Bucky assumes Steve is meeting someone for coffee except he sees him ten minutes later, making his way up the stairs with a single takeaway cup.)

.

Natasha stops dating Clint and starts dating Yelena and no one, not even Bucky, knows if it’s some kind of tactic to maintain the Prima spot. 

.

Bucky comes home from work late on a Friday. He’s walking along the sidewalk near his building when he looks up. There are lights flashing and an ambulance is pulled up outside. For a moment, he figures it’s old man Schmidt from the ground floor, who gets angina and pleurisy on alternate weekends and whose face is red from apoplexy and high blood pressure.

.

There are some beautiful paintings on the walls of Steve Rogers’ apartment. There are unfinished sketches lying around and pages of portraits in charcoal. 

There’s a mythical landscape of knights on horseback. There’s a full length portrait of a man, with his head tipped back as he laughs, his hands curled around a chipped coffee mug.

They say the value of art increases after the artist’s death.

**Author's Note:**

> +Title is adapted from _Lost Myself_ by the Longpigs.  
>  +I am so so sorry. If it's any consolation, this is the conversation haipollai and I had while I was writing this:  
>  **haipollai:** WHAT  
>  OMG WHAT HAVE YOU DONE  
> DID YOU KILL STEVE?! AGAIN???  
>  **lanyon:** IT IS POSSIBLE. BUT I LIKE TO THINK IT'S AMBIGUOUS????  
>  **haipollai:** ARE YOU ENDING IT THERE?!?!?!  
>  **lanyon:** YES  
>  **haipollai:** OMG YOU JERK

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [I spoke about wings; you just flew](https://archiveofourown.org/works/663155) by [lanyon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon)




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